“Exactly,” said Maurice.
“Maurice, you found all that out today?” Curial asked.
“Don’t look so surprised. Like I’ve been saying, you need my help. Now come on, the train leaves soon.”
Maurice started to jog away when Curial caught him by the arm. “Wait Maurice. Why Moscow?”
“Man you’re needy. Because I also figured out who ran that top secret organization.”
“You did?”
Maurice’s eyes suddenly grew big. “Oh crap, I think big trench coat guy brought some friends with him.”
From one direction, the big man in the trench coat continued his gradual march toward them. From the other, three tough looking men came toward them, walking shoulder to shoulder.
Dina grabbed Curial and pulled him hard. “We need to go now!” The three of them broke into a sprint and as soon as they did, Curial could see the three men beginning to run as well.
Dina was in the lead, weaving in and out of the foot traffic as crowds of people marched toward the train station.
“Please tell me you already bought the tickets!” yelled Dina from ahead.
Maurice laughed. “What would you do without me? Of course I have the tickets.”
Just then a man jumped in front of Dina with his arms wide open and growled. She hit the ground, rolled under his arms, bounced up and kept running.
The man regrouped and came straight at Curial. Curial tried to move around him but the man was too fast, his arms grabbed onto Curial from the side. The man barked something in Russian as Curial tried to squirm away, then all of a sudden the man’s body went limp and he screamed.
Maurice has whacked him in the back of the legs with his walking cane.
“Thanks Maurice, I owe you one.”
Maurice slapped the tickets into his hand. “You get up there with Dina and get our seats, I’ll create a diversion.”
Curial grabbed Maurice and dragged him along. “How about we forget the diversion and both get on the train?”
They sprinted. Half a block away, Dina was at the steps of the train, waving for them.
Curial turned around. The three men were almost on them.
“Oh crap.”
As if by instinct, Maurice stopped and started violently swinging his walking stick back and forth. The men immediately stopped their pursuit.
“Go Curial, go!” Maurice yelled.
Curial sprinted ahead and handed the attendant their tickets. Then he and Dina jumped on. The train started to slowly move.
“Maurice!” Curial yelled.
Maurice threw the cane at the men and screamed, then spun around and made a dead sprint for the train. Son of a gun, Curial thought. He was going to make it. He might be annoying as heck, but this Maurice, he was also pretty brave.
“Come on Maurice!” Dina yelled.
The train was moving faster now and the attendant told Dina and Curial to take their seats but Curial was focused on Maurice. He was just ten feet away now, and Curial reached his hand down.
“Now Maurice, jump now!”
Then Maurice jumped just as a man flew in from the right and grabbed him in mid-air.
“No!” Curial yelled. But it was too late. The man had Maurice, who was kicking and swinging his arms and screaming. The train was speeding up now and all Curial and Dina could do was watch as Maurice quickly faded into the distance.
Chapter Eighteen – Moscow
Curial stumbled as the train surged forward. As he steadied himself, he saw Dina looking around as if trying to get her bearings.
“We need to get off this train,” Curial said.
Dina breathed in through her nose, then shook her head. “First stop is an hour away.”
“Then we get off in an hour, come back to St. Petersburg, and find Maurice.”
Dina shook her head again. “There are over five million people in St. Petersburg. How exactly do we find him?”
“I don’t know, we call the police.”
“We are not in America. For all we know it’s the police who took him.”
Curial became aware that people on the train were staring at him, and Dina was already walking down the aisle towards empty seats. She sat down and moved towards the window. Curial sat next to her.
“Then we call your grandfather. He’s an important man at the University, he could help us out right?”
“There is no way I’m telling my grandfather that I’ve gotten myself mixed up in…whatever this is. You’re the rich American, why don’t you call someone?”
“I would also rather not tell anybody what I’ve gotten mixed up in.”
“So it appears we’re at a standstill.”
“Yeah,” Curial said. “It does.”
“Then listen. Maurice was telling us he figured something out about that symbol.”
Curial pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and opened it up. “He said it was a symbol of a secret KGB program and that he’d figured out who ran the program and the answer was in Moscow.”
“And I’m guessing this guy heard Maurice was poking around in his business and had his guys take him. Which means…”
“We go to Moscow and figure out who this guy is.”
Dina seemed to think about it for a moment, then finally nodded. “It’s our best shot. We find that guy, maybe we find your friend.”
“He’s not my friend.”
“So he just saved your life back there because he’s not your friend?”
Curial looked away. “How long does it take to get to Moscow?”
“On this train? Only four hours.”
“Is that enough time to come up with a plan?”
Dina bit her lip. “Don’t worry blockhead, I’ve already got one.”
*-*-*
After Curial and Dina arrived in Moscow three hours and forty-five minutes later, they took a cab driven by a man who thought stopping meant slowing down just enough so passengers could jump out without killing themselves.
Curial avoided a car and followed Dina onto a circular berm in the middle of the square. They stared at the front of a massive building. Five stories tall, windows and colonnades filling up every square inch, the stone a light brown with reddish hues.
“Lubyanka,” Dina said menacingly. “The headquarters for the Russian secret police. First the Cheka, then KGB, and now FSB. But always the same.”
“And we’re just going to walk in the headquarters of the FSB and ask for their help?”
“No,” she pointed down the block. “Thankfully, there is a museum down there which is much less scary.”
Dina led Curial a block away to a fairly dilapidated building. On one corner was a grocery store. On the other end was a broken down building, with plywood covering the windows. In between, was a door with the number twelve in large black letters.
Curial frowned. “That’s a museum?”
“A very small museum.”
His frown worsened. “A very ugly museum.”
“You expected Russian secret police to have a pretty museum?”
Dina took the door and opened it, a buzzer sounding as Curial followed her in.
The museum was definitely not pretty. To the contrary, it was the smallest and least glamorous museum Curial had ever seen. Like what a museum for 1970’s office equipment might look like. As Dina walked towards a woman at the front desk, Curial scanned the room, dust and old carpet fogging his view.
“May I help you?” The tall, middle-aged woman said as she looked up from her computer screen. Her eyes fell upon Dina, then opened wide as they danced over to Curial. Her mouth fell open slightly, then she shook her head a bit and returned to Dina.
“You are interested in a tour of our museum?” She stepped to the side and offered her arm as if she was about to start a tour. A tour of what Curial had calculated was a room no larger than twenty by thirty feet. It was a wonder the Louvre was better known than the FSB Museum.
“Sorry,” Dina said. “No tour today.�
��
The woman’s eyebrows slumped.
Dina stepped forward. “We are doing some research, and thought you might be able to provide some answers.”
The woman folded her arms. “What kind of research?”
Dina took out the piece of paper with the symbol. She handed it to the woman. “We wondered if you might recognize this symbol.”
The woman glanced at it, then arched her eyebrows and looked at Dina and Curial over her glasses.
She waved the paper in the air. “Where did you get this?”
Dina exchanged a nervous look with Curial.
“My grandfather,” said Dina.
“And where did your grandfather get this?”
Dina shrugged. “I don’t know. He was in the war and this was with his things. When I was little, I found it, and he told me it was a symbol painted on the bottom of a very important object. That there was a special group in the Soviet Army that went around collecting objects that had special powers.”
“Special powers?”
“That’s what my grandfather told me. Anyways, he’s gone now, and, I’ve always wanted to learn more. Was my grandfather’s story the truth?”
The woman seemed to stand a little straighter, then she looked at the symbol and at Dina and Curial again. Finally, she cocked her head a bit and took off her glasses.
“There was a group but it wasn’t in the army, which I’m guessing you already knew since you’re here at the FSB museum, no? Stalin heard about Hitler’s plans to collect objects, special objects, and so he formed his own group, a special part of the secret police. The group had their own symbol.” She shook the paper. “This symbol. And they imprinted it on the objects they found.”
Dina turned to Curial and they shared a smile.
“And the two of you are looking for one of these objects, no?”
Dina stood taller. “The program, the special program, who was in charge of it?”
“His name was Koralenko, Anton Koralenko. One of the very few trusted confidents that Stalin did not have murdered.”
“So he’s still alive?”
She laughed. “No, Anton Koralenko is not alive.”
Curial’s shoulders fell.
She handed the paper back to Dina. “But his son Victor is. Victor Koralenko is a very important man, former KGB himself.”
Dina put the paper back in her pocket. “You said former, what does he do now?”
The woman smiled and lifted her hands up in the air. “Victor Koralenko does art now. He’s one of the great private collectors in all of Russia. His home is practically a museum itself.” She studied Dina and Curial again. “You want to tell me what object you are looking for?”
Curial stepped forward but Dina caught him by the elbow and squeezed. Then she took a step back.
“No, thank you. I think we learned what we needed.”
The woman’s eyes danced, then she held up a long bony finger. “No please, wait. I know someone who can help you.” She walked a few steps and grabbed a phone from the wall.
Dina leaned in. “We need to go now Curial.”
“But shouldn’t we let her help us first.”
“I don’t think she’s trying to help us.”
The woman’s eyes grew big. She pointed a long finger at them.
Dina hissed. “We need to go now.”
Curial followed Dina as she pushed the door open and sprinted away from building number twelve, a tall bony woman screaming Russian behind them.
Chapter Nineteen – Red Square
“I told you this was a bad idea,” Curial yelled ahead to Dina. Off to his right a black car stopped and two men jumped out. The woman kept screaming in Russian.
The men started running as Curial caught up to Dina. “I assume you have a plan for how to get out of this?”
Curial spun around to take a look. The men were twenty yards behind and closing fast.
“You could just throw money at them and try to buy them off.” Dina stopped and pointed across the street. “There!” She jumped in front of an oncoming car and held up her hands. The car skidded to a stop while blaring it’s horn. Dina ignored it and weaved her way through the mid-day traffic, Curial close behind. She hopped onto a red scooter and hit the gas. She turned to Curial. “Well hop on!”
Curial looked behind him. One of the men was crossing the traffic, coming for them. Curial hopped on the back of the scooter and wrapped his arms around Dina’s waist.
“You’re stealing someone’s motor scooter?”
“I’m happy to leave it here if you’d rather we visit with those nice FSB agents.”
Dina revved up the scooter and that’s when Curial noticed the next problem. Dina was facing towards oncoming traffic.
“What exactly are you doing?” He yelled as she pulled out into traffic and sped away.
“It’s called saving your blockhead, now shut-up and let me drive!”
She swerved to the left of an oncoming car, then squeezed in between two taxis.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!”
“You worry too much,” Dina practically cackled.
For one fantastically scary block, Dina swerved in and out of oncoming traffic, then suddenly took a sharp right so they were now going with traffic, the correct direction.
Curial let out a huge breath. “Thank you for not killing me.”
Dina swiveled her head.
“Don’t thank me yet, we’re being followed.”
Curial spun in time to see a black sedan take a left onto their same street and speed off after them.
“Crap.”
He felt the scooter surge forward as Dina increased the speed. He tightened his grip around her waist. She took a sharp left which Curial wasn’t expecting. His body leaned over to the right but he hung on tight.
“Maybe warn me the next time?” he said.
“Sorry, didn’t know I was turning until the last second.”
Dina sped down what looked like a connecting street and Curial heard the roar of the sedan getting closer.
Dina took a right in front of an oncoming truck then changed lanes immediately. In front of them, the street opened up for several blocks. She gunned the engine. She squeezed in between four sets of cars and each time she did Curial felt like a nut going through a nut cracker. But the roar of that black sedan faded into the distance and Curial suddenly felt like they just might get out of this.
Until he noticed Dina slowing down.
“Wait, what are you doing?”
She drove up onto a sidewalk and stopped the scooter next to a newsstand. She climbed off. “They will be looking for a scooter. Now we go on foot.”
“And how exactly are we supposed to outrun them on foot?”
Dina pointed ahead to what looked like a dead end, people walking towards something.”
“We’re not going to outrun them, we’ll outthink them. Up ahead is Red Square and at this time of day, they’ll be a couple thousand people milling about. We get lost in the crowd and find another way out of here.”
Dina sped her walk up to a skip and Curial followed. Before he knew it, they had crossed a street and joined a group of people in front of a beautiful red church that looked like a cross between a church and a palace.
“The state historical society,” Dina pointed out as if by habit.
Curial looked on in wonder. “Now that, that looks like a museum.”
She grabbed his hand. “Come on.”
She pulled him into a crowd of people filing into Red Square. On their left was an enormous building that really did look like a palace, one that might continue forever. On the right side was a long red wall with an equally impressive building peeking out from behind.
“That,” Dina said while pointing to their right. “That is the Kremlin wall, and behind it is the Russian President’s official residence. All the main functions of Government take place inside the Kremlin walls.”
Curial pointed to their left. “And w
hat’s that enormous building?”
“GUM.” Dina said plainly.
“No, I asked about the building.”
She rolled her eyes. “I know, it’s called GUM, it’s a Russian acronym that you wouldn’t understand because you of course don’t know Russian. Basically, that building is the largest shopping mall in Russia.”
“It looks too old and fancy to be a shopping mall.”
“Let’s just say it was the first shopping mall. Now please hurry.”
She pulled them forward when the crowd in front of them suddenly parted and another building came into view. Curial stopped and opened his mouth. A building like no other in the world. Shaped like the flames of a bonfire rising into the sky. It’s many spires topped by multi colored onion domes.
“That’s St. Basil’s,” he said in a shaky voice.
“Yeah, we are in Red square you know.”
“But, it-it’s so beautiful.”
“Yes, it can have that effect on people. Now keep moving.”
Suddenly the crowd in front of them started to turn, like dominoes falling down. And a chill ran down Curial’s spine as he became aware that the people were turning to stare.
At him.
“Oh no,” he said.
Two men in suits slipped through the crowd, shouted in Russian and ran towards them.
Curial instinctively ran to the left side of the square, Dina right behind him.
He was running for his life.
He was running to the GUM.
Chapter Twenty – The Chase
Dina and Curial made it to the top of the steps at the same time, then opened the doors to the GUM and sprinted in.
As soon as he looked around, Curial was taken aback. To his left and right, shops lined three stories of a mall that seemed to extend forever in both directions. A glass domed ceiling covered the mall’s entire length.
Dina raced to the right and headed up a flight of stairs. Curial followed her up to the second floor where she was walking quickly past two shops, then stopped and peaked over the railing. The same two men from Red Square came into the middle of the mall. To their right, more commotion as two men came running down the mall.
Teenage Treasure Hunter Page 10